Where the Boys Are was one of the first teen films to explore adolescent sexuality and the changing sexual morals and attitudes among American college youth. It won Laurel awards for Best Comedy of the Year and Best Comedy Actress (Paula Prentiss).

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The main focus of Where the Boys Are is the "coming of age" of four girl students at a midwestern university during spring vacation. Merritt Andrews (Dolores Hart), the smart and assertive leader of the quartet, expresses the opinion in class that premarital sex might be something young women should experience. Her speech eventually inspires the insecure Melanie Tolman (Yvette Mimieux) to lose her virginity soon after the young women arrive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Tuggle Carpenter (Paula Prentiss) seeks to be a "baby-making machine," lacking only a man to join her in marriage. Angie (Connie Francis) rounds out the group as an athletic girl who is clueless when it comes to romance.

The girls find their attitudes challenged. Merritt, a freshman, meets the suave rich-boy Ivy Leaguer Ryder Smith (George Hamilton), a senior at Brown, and realizes she's not ready for sex. Melanie discovers that Franklin (Rory Harrity), a boy from Yale who she thought loved her, was only using her for sex. Tuggle quickly fixes her attention on the goofy "TV" Thompson (Jim Hutton), a junior at Michigan State, but becomes disillusioned when he becomes enamored of the older woman Lola Fandango (Barbara Nichols), who works as a "mermaid" swimmer/dancer in a local bar. Angie stumbles into love with the eccentric jazz musician Basil (Frank Gorshin).

The post-adolescent relationship angst of Merritt, Tuggle, and Angie evaporates when they discover Melanie is in distress after going to meet Franklin at a motel and instead finding there another of the "Yalies", Dill, who had raped her. Franklin had moved on to another girl, but told Dill that Melanie was "easy" and set up the ambush. Melanie, with her dress torn, ends up walking into the busy road nearby looking distraught and wanting to die. Just as her friends arrive, she is sideswiped by a car and ends up in hospital.

Ultimately, it seems the girls have learned the potentially serious consequences of their actions and they resolve to act in a more mature and responsible manner. The film ends on a melancholy note, with Melanie recovering in the hospital while Merritt looks after her, and with Merritt's promises to Ryder to continue a long-distance relationship. He then offers to drive them back to their college.

The novel contained a section where the students help raise money to ship arms to Fidel Castro for his revolution in Cuba. Pasternak decided to remove this. "The author was very sympathetic to Castro," said Pasternak. "Politics does not belong in entertainment. As actors or writers or movie makers of any sort, we have a right to our political preferences. But that is why we have secret ballots... We felt that the only revolution these youngsters should be involved in was their personal revolution."[10]

Hamilton says he improvised the scene where he wrote a question mark in the sand to Dolores Hart. He thought he was making a "little nothing of a film" and did not enjoy the shoot but it became a big success. The film also featured the big screen debut, in an unaccredited role, by former Miss Ohio and Elvis Presley consort Kathy Gabriel.[13]

MGM had bolstered the film's success potential by giving a large role to Connie Francis, the top American female recording star and a member of the MGM Records roster. Francis had solicited the services of Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, who had written hit songs for her, to write original material for her to perform on the film's soundtrack including a "Where the Boys Are" title song. Sedaka and Greenfield wrote two potential title songs for the film, but producer Joe Pasternak passed over the song Francis and the songwriting duo preferred in favor of a lush '50s style movie theme. Francis recorded the song on October 18, 1960, in a New York City recording session with Stan Applebaum arranging and conducting.

Although it only peaked at # 4 in the US, the theme song of "Where the Boys are" became Connie Francis's signature tune, followed by several cover versions.

American humanities professor Camille Paglia[18] has praised Where the Boys Are for its accurate depiction of courtship and sexuality, illustrating once-common wisdom that she contends has been obscured by second-wave feminism:

The theatrics of public rage over date rape are [feminists'] way of restoring the old sexual rules that were shattered by my generation. Because nothing about the sexes has really changed. The comic film Where the Boys Are (1960), the ultimate expression of '50s man-chasing, still speaks directly to our time. It shows smart, lively women skillfully anticipating and fending off the dozens of strategies with which horny men try to get them into bed. The agonizing date rape subplot and climax are brilliantly done. The victim, Yvette Mimieux, makes mistake after mistake, obvious to the other girls. She allows herself to be lured away from her girlfriends and into isolation with boys whose character and intentions she misreads. Where the Boys Are tells the truth. It shows courtship as a dangerous game in which the signals are not verbal but subliminal.

In 1960 it was announced Pasternak would make a follow up, Where the Girls Are starring George Hamilton. It was meant to be an entirely different story rather than a sequel.[20] But this was never produced.[21][22]

Pasternak also announced plans to reunite Hamilton, Prentiss, Hutton and Mimieux in a romantic comedy Only a Paper Moon from a story by George Bradshaw, "Image of a Starlet".[23] This became A Ticklish Affair, and was made, but without any of those actors.[24]

Where the Boys Are '84, was released in 1984 by TriStar Pictures. While it bears the distinction of being the first film released by TriStar, the film was a critical and commercial failure. Although it was touted as a remake, Roger Ebert reported that "It isn't a sequel and isn't a remake and isn't, in fact, much of anything."[25]

^PASTERNAK BARS POLITICS IN FILM: Producer Cuts Part on Cuba in 'Where the Boys Are,' Based on Swarthout Book.
By MURRAY SCHUMACH Special to The New York Times.. New York Times (1923-Current file) [New York, N.Y] 04 Aug 1960: 16.